This was a competition entry which had to incorporate
10 book titles (plus another one for the title) from a list provided by an
antiquarian book suppliers. See if you can spot the titles!
We have a small farm nestled between the estates
of Westonbirt and Easton Grey. Of course now they are pretty little villages,
filling up with weekly commuters, but going back some years it was Mr. Grey
to the east and Mr. Birt to the West. Their families are long gone too, but
we're still here: have been since they wrote the Domesday Book, and surely
will be at Doomsday itself.
I love the farmhouse, a microcosmography of country living, socially constructed
to have everything - and everyone - in the right place, from the front porch
to the back step. The back step is, of course, the place for the neighbours
to bring a cup of news. The front door, as unknown to us as a journey to the
Frontier, is for the Vicar and coffins. The last coffin was grandmother Dora
and with her we lost the last vestiges of the Victorian world. Picture her
sitting in her rocking chair by the fire in the kitchen, lace cap on her head,
in widow's weeds and her hands always busy - knitting, crocheting, shelling
peas, lace making, stringing beans or threading beads.
The parlour suffers under the burdens of formality and lack of use. A stuffy
room, almost as antiquated as Dora, no modern painters here. Some dreary pastoral
scenes adorn the walls, and the ugliest china figurines you ever saw fill
a glass-fronted cabinet. We used to produce hilarious parodies and burlesque
pieces based on the imagined lives of the 'Chinese People', as we called them
as children.
The kitchen is the hub of our universe, always warm, never empty, clutter
everywhere. The old pans never left the range and there was always the smell
of baking in the air. Not that we ever had anything fancy: only country fare
so plain that sometimes we felt as if we were under siege. This was Mother's
stronghold and she would put to work anyone who ventured in. But what else
was to be expected with so many mouths to feed and so little money to do it
with.
My favourite place, though, is the little attic bedroom I shared with my two
sisters. Here we could hide away from the fussing and demands of the family,
escape for a quiet talk after the long walk home from school, and work on
our scrapbooks. I found snippets from the local paper, cards and invitations,
and even the occasional photograph. It became in time a calendar of consolation
as my life produced its share of happiness and grief, and I enjoy pondering
its contents even now.
In case you missed any of the titles, they were:
Domesday Book
Microcosmography
A Cup of News
Journey to the Frontier
The Victorian World Picture
The Burdens of Formality
Modern Painters
Parodies and Burlesque Pieces
Under Siege
A Calendar of Consolation
| Hunter | Mavis and Ethel |